Canadian scientific breakthroughs

From the founding of the country, Canadians made many major scientific discoveries and innovations. In the 1870s, for example, Alexander Graham Bell satisfactorily solved the problem of turning sound into an electrical impulse at a transmitter and then converting the signal back to audible speech through a receiver, an achievement that gave rise to the telephone. At the turn of the 20th century significant advances in science and medicine in Canada transformed the country further. Teaching and research in the sciences were expanding rapidly and, thanks to donations, a number of buildings and laboratories were built specifically for the sciences, and especially the applied sciences. Harriet Brooks made important contributions to the field of radioactivity: in 1901 she was the first person to characterize the gas now known as radon. With the outbreak of the First World War the need to mobilize the country’s industrial capacity was evident, and scientific institutions were established, such as the Honorary Advisory Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, appointed in 1916. A group of researchers in 1922 made a great medical discovery by developing a purified extract, soon to be named insulin, which had dramatic effects in eliminating the symptoms of diabetes mellitus and restoring its victims to nearly normal physical health.